Top 5 Hacks To Crush Aggressive Poker Players

31 May 2025

Intermediate

This material is for medium-skilled players

Aggressive players are arguably the toughest opponents in poker. We’ve all played against those kinds of people who never let up and keep you on edge. Today, poker coach Jonathan Little shares his 5 best tips for beating them. Whether you’re grinding small-stakes cash games or playing live tournaments, these hacks will help you fight back and take control.

The first key is to stick to solid preflop ranges. Against aggressive opponents, you simply must play strong, fundamentally sound hands before the flop — because you need to make decent hands often post-flop.

And make it a point to avoid weak speculative hands, like:

• Junky suited gappers ( ,  );
• Offsuit marginal hands ( ,  ).

Even when facing wide ranges, these hands don’t play well. When you connect, it’s usually just a weak one-pair hand — and that’s not enough against an opponent applying constant pressure.

So tighten up just a bit. Play strong hands that hit the flop hard. That way, you’ll show up on the flop, turn, and river with fewer weak holdings — and more hands that can confidently call down or trap.

If your opponent bets a lot when you check to them, don’t rush to check-raise or lead out. Instead, slow play your strong hands. Aggressive players fire too frequently with junk. That means:

• Your strong hands need less protection;
• And they’re more likely to bluff into you when you just call.

A lot of these players think a check-call means weakness. They assume you’d raise with a strong hand — so when you just call, they think you’re capped. That’s exactly what you want. It gives them confidence to keep firing on the turn and river. And that’s when you either call them down or spring a trap with a check-raise on the river, if stacks are still behind.

Example hand: You raise   to $6, 100bb deep at 1/2 NL. A loose-aggressive player on the cutoff 3-bets. Many players make the mistake of 4-betting here — and then either folding or calling off versus a shove. Not ideal. A better line? Just call. Go to the flop and see what develops.

Flop comes:   . You check:

Opponent bets $18. Many players think: “I should raise here — my  is probably good, and their range is wide, so I want to push them out”. Nope. Not so fast. Your opponent could definitely have a King, which beats you, but they might also be bluffing with a bunch of hands that make sense on this flop.

What bluffs might they have? Ace-Jack or Ace-Ten, both drawing to just 4 outs. If your opponent is aggressive enough to bluff on the turn and river, they might fire with these hands even though in a perfect Game Theory Optimal world, they wouldn’t. Why? Because when you check-call, they assume you hold a Queen, maybe a Six, or a small pocket pair.

So let your opponents chase those 4 outs if they’re going to keep bluffing. They might also have hands like Jack-Ten (it does have 7 outs, counting three Aces and four Nines), Ten-Nine or Jack-Nine with gutshot draws. Or they could simply have nothing — hands like Ace-Nine, Ace-Eight, Ace-Seven, down to Ace-Two, or small pairs like pocket Threes, or suited connectors like Eight-Seven. Hands that are drawing thin or close to dead.

Could they have a flush draw? Possibly, but since you hold the , it’s less likely — they can’t have any Ace of Spades combos. And if they do have a flush draw with 9 outs, you still have chances to improve on later streets. 

So, the best move here? Check and call. Same goes if you flop a King. The turn brings a club. You check again. Opponent bets $50. Many players now panic, thinking “Oh no, they must have it”. They might — a King, Queen, or a set — but most likely, they don’t. Just check-call again. Don’t raise here. Raising will push out all the hands that are drawing thin or close to dead, which you want to keep around.

The river brings the — completing their flush, maybe. You check. Opponent shoves all-in. This is an easy call, at least in my view — and hopefully in yours after watching this. Yes, you lose to flushes, but remember: they can’t have the Ace-high or King-high flushes because you hold the , and some spade combos are impossible since they’re on the board (like Eight or Six of Spades).

The spade combinations in their range are limited, so don’t sweat it. They might still have a King, but that’s not enough reason to fold here. Some players wouldn’t even value bet a King on the river, but plenty of loose aggressive players definitely would.

Keep in mind, they’ll have Ace-King less often because you hold the Ace, blocking that combo. They’ll also have King-Queen less often since you block the Queen. And it’s unlikely they’re value-shoving something like   here.

So you can start removing a lot of Kings from their range. But on the flip side, their range is packed with busted junk — hands like Ace-Jack, Ace-Ten, Jack-Ten, Jack-Nine, Ten-Nine, and random combos.

Even though you’re going to lose to some hands, this is an extremely easy call. Fold here, and against aggressive players, you won’t win much poker. Call and have some fun. Take   — if you raised the flop, that would’ve been a mistake. Raise the turn? Also bad. Fold the river? Nope, that’s a mistake too. Like I said, I would have played a King, a set, or two pair the exact same way: check-call, check-call, check-call.

Just like in that last hand with only the second pair, you need to widen your calling range against aggressive players. They love to bluff — it’s in their nature. Once you notice a player who just won’t give up without a showdown win, adjust accordingly and call down much wider. Top pair, even middle pairs, suddenly become powerful holdings against aggressive opponents.

If your opponent is bluffing more than they should — more than what Game Theory Optimal strategy suggests — then all your bluff catchers should be calling on the river. To be clear, a bluff catcher is a hand that beats all bluffs but loses to all value hands.

Let’s walk through an example: We’re holding  . A loose-aggressive player raises, and naturally, we call.

The flop comes    . We’ve paired our nine. We check, and our opponent bets $8 — an easy call. The turn brings the . We check again, and they check back. Great. I can already tell you: I’m check-calling every river here.

The river is the — not a great card for us. Notice hands like and Queen-Jack now have made straights:

So we check, the opponent bets nearly the pot. Against a strong, skilled player, this might be close to a fold — though I’d probably still call. Against a weak, passive player, I’d definitely fold. But against a loose-aggressive player who bluffs way too often, this is a very easy call.

Is this a bluff catcher? Absolutely. We beat all their bluffs. Even if they’re bluffing with pocket fours, we still win. We lose to all value bets, but I don’t expect them to value bet hands like Nine-Eight for this size — that would be too aggressive.

So this is a clear bluff catcher spot. In fact, pretty much anything from a Two up to a Nine is a bluff catcher here — maybe even a bad Ten. Hands like Ace-Queen or Ace-Jack might also count as bluff catchers, because many players wouldn’t pot the river with just a pair of twos. Sure, some overly loose-aggressive players will bluff with hands that don’t really need to, but in this spot, anything from Ace-Jack up to a pair of Tens can be considered bluff catchers. 

You might wonder how some of the best players in the world can consistently call hands like Ace-high or King-high against their overly loose-aggressive opponents—and still be right more often than not, or at least call at the frequency pot odds demand. The answer is simple: they know their opponents are over-bluffing. They have a solid bluff-catching hand, so they find the call.

Look at the pot odds here. We’re facing a bet of $25, and the total pot after the bet will be $79 (the $50 pot plus the $29 total of the bet and call). To figure out how often we need to win to justify calling, divide the bet ($25) by the total pot ($79). That’s roughly 32%.

If we win more than about 32% of the time, calling is an easy decision. How often do we actually win? That depends on the opponent’s tendencies, but it could be around 38%, 40%, or even 42%. Remember, you don’t need to win more than half the time to call — that’s a common mistake. You just need to win enough to make the call profitable given the pot odds.

Now, if your opponent is tight, weak, and straightforward — like many small stakes players — they simply won’t bluff enough for this to be a good call. In that case, folding is the right move because they’re unlikely to bluff with hands that can’t win at showdown. But against someone who bluffs too much, this is an easy call, especially when you take a passive line like check, call, check, check, check. This line makes you look weak, encouraging bluffs.

Number four is to stay mentally tough. Do not let these loose aggressive players tilt you. A long time ago, when I first started playing poker, I would get mad when someone would re-raise me a lot. Until I realized, I don't really care if they re-raise me a lot if they're bluffing too often, and if they are just getting good cards, I mean, congrats to them. Sometimes you're going to get good cards, right? 

Many players go on tilt and start thinking, I need to fight fire with fire and be insane. I need to call down with king high and show him who's boss. No, no! Stay sane. Play good, strong, reasonable poker. Do not lose your mind. A lot of players think they need to be hyped up to play poker. They play fighting music before they go to play their sessions.

I think that is the exact incorrect thing to do. I think you need to be chill and zen and simply make a point to be in the mindset to make the best play every single time you have an opportunity to make a decision. Stay calm, adapt logically, and the money will flow your direction.

Finally, you need to realize that all aggressive players are not the same. Aggressive players come in all sorts of types. Some players will be aggressive in some spots, but not in others.

For example, you may find that some players love to 3-bet or 4-bet preflop. They like to raise and re-raise and re-raise and re-raise, but when they flop nothing on the flop, they just give up. A lot of players will raise before the flop reasonably, continuation bet the flop reasonably, but then if they bet the flop and get called on the turn, they almost never bluff. So that should make your poker strategy change a lot.

So always make sure you consider specifically what your opponents do. Let’s say your opponent does bet the flop and the turn way too wide. Well, on the flop you should check-call them more often when the board is especially good for them and check-raise more often when the board is especially good for you.

Let’s say you do check-call though. On the turn, same story. Check-call more often or check-raise more often. On the river though, if you check and this player will bet the flop too wide and the turn too wide, but never bluff the river, you should actually check-fold all your bluff catchers on the river.

And that may sound very counterintuitive — to call wide on the flop, call wide on the turn, and then do the opposite on the river, fold too often — but that’s how you exploit someone who makes that mistake. So pay attention to your specific opponents and do whatever you need to do to take advantage of the specific mistakes they are making.

Just do not assume all aggressive players are the same. Also, just to be very clear, some will be way too loose and aggressive, but some will be too tight and aggressive. And if you’re against a tight and aggressive player, there’s not a whole lot you can do besides get out of their way and wait for a good hand.

You win against those players by making them fold too often, especially for small bets. But against the loose aggressive players, that’s when you really do need to be calling down far more often and slow playing far more often. So that is it.

So that is it! That is how you crush aggressive players. Let’s sum up:

• Play reasonable preflop ranges. You can’t play garbage if your opponent’s going to be blasting the money in.
• You need to slow play more often, especially with your good hands that are not vulnerable to being outdrawn.
• You need to call down lighter, far wider.
• You also need to stay mentally tough. Don’t let them get to you. If you do, check call down a few times and they will show you good hands. But you’ve seen a bluff a million other times, realize you probably just got unlucky because even loose players get good hands some portion of the time.
• And finally, recognize that all aggressive players are not the same.

Thank you very much for reading and I’ll talk to you next time. Good luck in your poker sessions!